Pages

Friday, 9 March 2012

Jabuticaba

It's the Jabuticaba, or Brazilian Grape Tree. It's also known as Myrciaria cauliflora, and it turns out that "caulis" means stem, so it's stem flower. And that's what it does. Flowers growing right out of the tree trunk and branches!

Apparently they're quite delicious and you can eat them straight from the tree! They're native to a state in southern Brazil that bears the oddly Tolkien name Minas Gerais. These days they are also grown in other warm parts of the world, partly because the fruits start to ferment in about half a week. This is great for making tarts, jellies and wine, but not so good for export.

If you look after them you could be getting a crop of fruit every couple of months. Eventually. Jabuticaba are very slow growing and it takes a good 10 or 20 years for them to fruit for the first time. They'll eventually reach 8 m (26 ft) in height, but they'll be just 50 cm (1.6 ft) tall for several years first. Which brings us to a whole other reason for their export to far flung parts of the world.